Long before John Dorsey was hired to be the Browns' general manager, he was part of a Packers front office that drafted Aaron Rodgers in 2005. It helped Green Bay capture a Super Bowl a few years later and re-establish itself as one of the league's preeminent franchises.
Now, Dorsey will help lead the charge to find Cleveland its franchise quarterback after years of instability at the position.
With the Senior Bowl in the books and the annual scouting combine a month away, the Browns, armed with the first and fourth overall picks in the upcoming NFL Draft, will turn their attention to a handful of quarterbacks who may be a fit to help them turn themselves around following the first winless season in franchise history.
Dorsey, who was hired by the Browns in December after four years as the Chiefs' general manager and more than a decade as a personnel executive in Green Bay, outlined, in no uncertain terms, what he values in a quarterback.
"Do they win?" he told reporters in Mobile, Alabama. "Do they have the physical skills necessary to play that position? Do they have a strong arm? Do they have deep ball accuracy? Do they have feet? Can they extend the play? Are they a leader of men?"
"We could go on and on," he continued, "but at the end of the day, it's about winning."
In introducing Dorsey last month, Browns owner Jimmy Haslam said the GM's "No.1 priority" will be to find a long-term answer at quarterback. "The Cleveland Browns are not going to be successful until we get a quarterback," Haslam said. "We're going to do whatever it takes to find a quarterback we need to be successful."
Last week, Dorsey, Browns coach Hue Jackson and members of Cleveland's reshaped executive team watched two potential top picks — Oklahoma's Baker Mayfield (the 2017 Heisman Trophy winner) and Wyoming's Josh Allen — up close at the Senior Bowl. Then, of course, there's USC's Sam Darnold and UCLA's Josh Rosen, who are widely projected to be top-10 picks come April. Lamar Jackson, the Louisville star quarterback and 2016 Heisman winner, has also been mentioned as a first-round pick.
"This just starts the process," Jackson told reporters at the Senior Bowl. "We'll continue to see these guys as we go through the offseason here and know more about them all."
In Dorsey's first year with Kansas City, the Chiefs owned the first overall pick in the 2013 draft. He declined to use it on a quarterback because "there really wasn't" a prospect worthy of that selection. The 2017 class, he said, is much different.
"There are four or five prospects in this class that make you think at least whether they're worthy of that position," he said.
"We're at the beginning stages, let's understand who they are as people, let's understand them as football players, let's see if they can be the face of the franchise and are they the guys for the Cleveland Browns. That's how I look at it."
